Saturday, January 1, 2011

Rockets get wake up call

You can get away without playing a full 60 minutes against some teams, but the Spokane Chiefs aren't one of them. The Chiefs, arguably the hottest team in the Western Conference, took it to a new level Saturday night in a strong 5-2 win over the Kelowna Rockets. The opening shift set the tone for the majority of the game as the visitors had the Rockets pinned in their own zone for the majority of the opening period. The Chiefs had a 15-2 shot advantage in the opening period and the score could have been worse had it not been for third star Adam Brown.

Remarkably the Rockets were only down by two goals after 40 minutes after generating just eight shots on goal. Despite the disastrous start, the Rockets could have made it a one goal game had the power play been affective. Instead it went 0 for 7, including two glorious chances at the midway point of the third period. To think the Rockets were in a position to be in a one goal game after being dominated through two periods was pretty amazing.

The fans at Prospera Place got angry by booing at one point on a Rockets third period power play. As the saying goes, the fans are with you win or tie.

Outside of the empty net goal by Levko Koper, his third of the game, all four of the Chiefs goals were scored in a similar fashion. Playing soft in front of the Rockets net resulted in second chance opportunities that the Chiefs buried. In fact, Brown was never beaten on an original shot, yet failed attempts to clear the puck or missed assignments resulted in goals for the visitors.

The biggest hit of the game came in the second period when Spokane forward Blake Gal was attempting to slam into Rockets defenceman Mitchell Chapman. Chapman got the better of Gal by sending him flying into the Chiefs bench. This hit has to make the WHL Plays of the Week. It was that good. Even the video replay on the big screen had the fans applauding Chapman's effort.

Seventeen year-old Jesse Astles was involved in a second period fight with WHL leading penalty minute man Darren Kramer. Astles did well against a player who recorded his 25th fighting major of the season. It was Astles 8th tilt of the season.

The Rockets 19 shots on goal was a season low.

Shane McColgan celebrated his 18th birthday with a second period goal. McColgan now has goals in four straight games and is currently riding a five game point streak.

3 comments:

15-2 shots after the 1st really says it all. They had a bad start and could not find a way to get back in it. Yeah the rest of the game they may have played better, but in order to win hockey games most of the time you need to play the full 60min as you mentioned. And what was with the pp tonight? 0-7 very few shots and very little scoring chances. The worst thing about tonight’s game was their inability to not find a way to get the puck out of their own end which lead 2 goals. But I guess you can't win all the games, but when you play like this as a fan it is frustrating. You play good and lose oh well. You play bad and lose... well that is a whole other story.

Brown once again amazed me. Where would the rockets be without this guy? He keeps us in so many games and tonight really gave us a chance to catch up, but a goalie can't lead a team to a victory without help from the rest of the team. As good as he is doing he needs 2 sit out a game soon. We play him too much and he is going 2 be tired the time playoffs come. For the rest of the season I would like to see Cooke play 7-10 games.

Well i guess the rockets are bound to have the odd night off too bad they had it off for that game, as a rockets fan i was disappointed but brown play was really good then on the other hand spokane has a really good team and it was good to see them control the puck and set plays up, i think their dominance on the ice is something our club should learn from. anyway i hope they have a better game in kamloops tonight.

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About Me

Bartel is a radio broadcaster for the Kelowna Rockets of the Western Hockey League. Bartel is enjoying his 26th year in the radio broadcast industry, spending 13 years at CKSW in Swift Current before moving to AM 1150 in Kelowna in the summer of 2000. Having called the play-by-play for the Swift Current Broncos and Kelowna Rockets, Bartel has called games at five Memorial Cups (2003,04,05,09, 2015), the CHL Top Prospects Game (2012) and the Canada-Russia Subway Super Series (2009). To listen to audio, just type audio in the window at the top left of the screen.